Mai Chau Valley

Mai Chau is a flat floor of rice fields ringed by limestone hills, settled by White Thai villages whose houses stand on stilts with the living floor above and the space beneath used for storage and looms. It is about four hours from Hanoi, which made it the first of the northern valleys to develop homestay tourism from the 1990s, and Lac and Pom Coong villages are now substantially given over to it - stilt houses converted to guest accommodation, with weaving sold on the ground floor. Cycling the valley between the villages is the standard way to see it, and the fields are worked normally around the visitors.

What you actually see

• White Thai stilt houses - living floor above, work space below.
• A flat valley in limestone hills - rice fields between the villages.
• Homestays since the 1990s - the first northern valley to develop them.
• Cycling between villages - the usual way round.

When to go

September to November and March to May; the rice is green in June and gold in September. Two days.

Honest expectations

Lac village is heavily commercialised and the homestay experience there is a business rather than a family's spare room. It is busy at weekends with Hanoi groups. The pass road is winding and slow.

Nearby

Pu Luong reserve is south-west; Hoa Binh lake is east.